It does not matter how many genuine or dodgy quotes are made from the Koran, the reality is Islam is not against the West and has never attacked the West probably since the battle for Vienna in 1683.

It is important to make the distinction between Islam and Muslims. Islam is a religion with its own teachings whiles Muslims refer to a group of people that claims to follow them. When this distinction is made then people wont find a reason to call people 'neo-conservative' and other derogatory epithets.

Being critical of Islamic teachings does not necessarily mean that such people support oppression or killing of any group of individuals. and words like 'neo-conservative' are just used to silence any statement made to expose the truth behind Islam.

There are people who are against any discrimination against Muslims (myself included) but at the same time have no problem is criticising the teachings of Islam and well as criticise the character or Muhammad.

You might find the contents of this article helpful before making further posts.

Muslims do not hate us. Muslims like immigrating to Western countries for the lifestyle.

This is an inaccurate statement with gross generalisation. There are Muslims who do not hate as well as there are Muslims who do engage in hate. Also the reason why Muslims immigrate to Western countries is not only because of lifestyle. There are other reasons too. So it is incorrect for you to say that it is only because of lifestyle. Too much inaccuracy and generalisation. Highly imprecise statement.

I had my blood taken this morning by a Bangladeshi pathologist wearing a Hijab. Nice lady.

I have Muslim friends and they are nice people. I also have no problem openly engaging in conversation about the teachings of Islam and criticising them in front of them and they are open minded people to accept that. I have no motivation to make them leave. But if they do start talking to me about the teachings of Islam then I openly say what I think just as anywhere else. And they are still friends with me.

Therefore the logical pathwaythat you use to generalise the teachings of an entire religion based on how a pathologist from Bangladesh took blood from you is a logical fallacy.

Because everyday Muslims share information about Being killed by Buddhists in Myanmar, I will share my opinion about recent conflict in Myanmar with you here. Simple:

Are Muslims killed in Myanmar / Burma by Buddhists?

NO.
Muslims live all around Mynamar in peace. Problem is only in Rakhine state with Rohingya minority. They lived there for centuries, but in last decade more Rohingya went from Bangladesh to Mynamar, runing away from persecution. They amount doubled from 2000 to 2010. They start to do crimes and problems exploded in 2012. In January 2017 Rohingya jihadists attacked several police stations in Rakhine, Myanmar state. Army start to push away all people who have no Myanmar citizenship.
Myanmar army doesnt mean Buddhist army.
Myanmar army is force of Myanmar army chunta.
Myanmar army is responsible for oppression and killing many people in last 30 years. Buddhists, Christians, Muslims... they dont care at all.

Can Aung San Suu Kyi do something about it?
Not really.
As she already said years ago, she is living for Myanmar citizens. As Myanmar is still totalitarian contry and unity of the country is most important part of constitution. As soon as Aung San Suu Kyi will try to change constitution, she will be in real prison.

Who is behind all this anti Buddhist propaganda?
I personally blame Malaysia as they lost contract for gas with China in Myanmar few years ago and as they support separation movement in South Thailand and Rakhine state too. They are not the only ones. Jihadists in Rakhine state in Myanmar are supported by rich Islamic countries. Same as ISIS / Daes was before. Plans of making Rakhine state new Islamic republic are well known and presented by Rohingya Jihadists on videos.

So it is.
Muslims are NOT killed in Myanmar - Rohingya is the only problem now.
Buddhists are not killing Muslims - Myanmar army is in "war" with Rohingya jihadists and they are "moving" Rohingya away from coutry.
Get your information right and dont share FAKE pictures.

How does the diagram represent typical outcomes? Isn't it just fictitious and based on the creators prejudice?

No, the process itself is very real. It's known by activists and those who take its execution seriously as the "progressive stack". There is also a concept called "intersectionality", whereby people may be regarded as automatically oppressed, because they fall into multiple of the identity groups specified. It's especially when "intersectionality"' is involved that the oppressed have to make more of an effort to compete to demonstrate their e.g. oppression - a transexual black person vs a muslim woman. It can get awfully complicated, and it doesn't even account for the actions and morality of the individual. You may not like the prejudice involved in the Oppression Olympics, but it's not the fault of those who lightly mock the Oppression Olympics... It's the fault of those who partake of it by judging according to identity classifications rather than by character. Which did the Buddha do?

Did you feel it wasn't relevant to this topic because Muslims were at the top?

It is relevant to this topic, because of the relativities involved. According to the "progressive stack", Muslims are automatically regarded as most oppressed group. As explained to DooDoot, that mentality is a form collectivist thinking, and if we really want to understand right and wrong in any given situation, collectivist reasoning should be replaced by an analysis by kamma, which is inherently individual, not collective, in nature.

Concepts like the Oppression Olympics, the Progressive Stack and Intersectionality are actual things, irrespective of whether you like the pictorial representation of them or not. Take a look at the Wikipedia entries for each concept, for example, and you'll see it's not just a meme.

According to the theory of the Oppression Olympics and the Progressive Stack, Muslims are more oppressed than Buddhists, so by this and this alone, Buddhists are inherently the oppressors of Muslims. This kind of prejudice appeals to some, and therefore feeds into the various narratives of those who think in such prejudicial ways, but I have nothing to say in favour of it.

That's because the progressive stack isn't actually based on data... It's based on the form of discrimination known as "reverse discrimination". Precisely because there isn't data, is the reason why those involved may need to compete in order to vie for recognition as most oppressed - hence the expression Oppression Olympics.

If the subject interests you, maybe you can create a topic and we can discuss it elsewhere. Its application here is only to demonstrate how the processes involved can shape the direction that media narratives can take, even before the actual circumstances themselves are considered. Namely, when compared via the progressive stack, Muslims are a more oppressed class than Buddhists, therefore Buddhists are oppressing Muslims.

The topic seems to be, for the most part, about a defenseless group of people called the Rohingya who are being persecuted & ethically cleansed for control of oil & gas land;

If all this is about oil and gas, then this has nothing directly to do with the Rohingyas; because anyone who would live on that land would be chased away from it by those seeking that oil and gas.

If all this is really primarily about oil and gas, then how come it is, in popular discourse, constructed as the persecution of a religious/ethnic group?

Thus, as Buddhists, I think we should take the moral position & have compassion (karuna) for these people, regardless of their religion.

Who here ever said otherwise?

While I still think that it cannot be ruled out that some of the persecuted people are experiencing the fruits of their past actions, this doesn't mean I advocate some kind of "Suits them right!" attitude.

Shouldn't the activism primarily focus on setting right those who unscrupulously want to exploit the oil and gas, as opposed to trying to help the persecuted people?
This is not to say that the persecuted people shouldn't be helped; but if the cause of their persecution isn't addressed, the matter cannot be resolved.

If an unscrupulous quest for oil and gas is what is really going on, then presenting it as a conflict between Buddhists and Muslims is just a diversion.

You might find the contents of this article helpful before making further posts.

I personaly have no problems with logic, unlike the articles you post. Buddhism is not something studied to be used as a weapon to attack others. Buddhism is something very pure therefore if every social system is compared to Buddhism, each will look very bad. For example, the crimes of the United States government, which by far eclipse any actions of Islam.

'Islamic terrorism' is a covert operation created by the British & United States governments. This is the bottom line in this matter. Those passionately campaigning against Islam are simply addressing the wrong cause (hetu; samudhaya); which is fatal in Buddhism. The cause of most severe current problems in the world is American govt imperialism. The attack on Islam since 9/11 fuels the Rohingya crisis because of the widespread vilification of Islam since 9/11. Islam did not do 9/11. It was Wahhabism that partook in 9/11. Wahhabism is an ally of the United States govt. This is the illogical matter those with cognitive dissonance cannot discern logically, due to cognitive dissonance.

At a White House meeting between the CIA’s director of plans, Frank Wisner, and John Foster Dulles, in September 1957, Eisenhower advised the agency, “We should do everything possible to stress the ‘holy war’ aspect,” according to a memo recorded by his staff secretary, Gen. Andrew J. Goodpaster.

This video can't help those with cognitive dissonance thus it is illogical.

https://www(dot)youtube(dot)com/watch?v=XzTkkATReO8

https://www(dot)youtube(dot)com/watch?v=8zP0FU46PcE

Why do you always have to involve global politics whenever Islam is being discussed? Criticizing the character of Muhammad or the other aspects of the teachings of Islam are not always to do with political agendas. That is a strawman.

Those passionately campaigning against Islam are simply addressing the wrong cause (hetu; samudhaya); which is fatal in Buddhism.

There are people of various different walks of life that criticise the doctrine of Islam for various reasons. It is foolish to assume all sorts of criticism arise from hatred and aversion. Even the Buddha crtiticised teachings which were unhelpful or cause hindrance to enlightenment. Critical analysis and hatred/aversion are not entirely mutually inclusive unlike the way you try to portray. Actually it is more dangerous that people go out of their way to justify the hideous acts that was done by the founder of Islam.

The attack on Islam since 9/11 fuels the Rohingya crisis because of the widespread vilification of Islam since 9/11. Islam did not do 9/11. It was Wahhabism that partook in 9/11. Wahhabism is an ally of the United States govt. This is the illogical matter those with cognitive dissonance cannot discern logically, due to cognitive dissonance.

Why do you assume that criticism of Islam has everything to do with blaming Islam just for Islamic terrorism? Its obvious that Islamic terrorism is something which started from reaction in Muslim majority countries towards Western foreign policy. But this does not mean that all those who bring up criticisms of the teachings within Islam do it with a politically-oriented way of looking at it.

Again, look at the middle three podiums, look at the colour scheme... look at the corresponding words Gold, Silver and Bronze literally placed directly underneath each of the middle three podiums.

It's a pictorial representation of this...

... expanded out beyond the three standard medals. Why? Who knows... potentially because so many people vie for oppression status, and everyone needs to get a medal, or at least a participation trophy... but you'd have to ask the originator of the image to know for sure.

Now... as I said, I'm happy to discuss this in a new topic, but your repeated miscomprehension of the diagram doesn't really connect to the topic at hand.

Yes I had seen that. Maybe you are right but what does "Medal Ranking" mean?

I suspect that unlike the regular Olympics, the Oppression Olympics only has one event... namely, participation in the Oppression Olympics itself. With only one event, the ranking is strictly internal to the sole event itself.

For the last time, I'm happy to discuss in a new topic, but since your line of enquiry has literally nothing to do with the topic at hand, it's time to...

Alright in case anyone isn’t noticing, Rohingyan genocide is bad. What are people doing, activism wise? Does anyone have any ideas about how to influence international policy via either the UN or the US, or via international NGO’s?

It would seem that pretty much everything after the second post is off topic. Oh well!

Alright in case anyone isn’t noticing, Rohingyan genocide is bad. What are people doing, activism wise? Does anyone have any ideas about how to influence international policy via either the UN or the US, or via international NGO’s?

It would seem that pretty much everything after the second post is off topic. Oh well!

I disagree, because to know what you want to achieve through activism, you need to:

Step 1: Understand the current situation
Step 2: Define a target situation
Step 3: Work out what actions might help to achieve that target situation.

Most of the posts to date have focused on the initial Step 1, and since the "As Is" situation is still ill-defined, it's perfectly reasonable to clarify what the current situation actually is, before working out how it should be interfered with, or even whether inference in the form of activism would bring net benefit to the situation at all. (There is a reason why the Buddha put the 1st Noble Truth first, rather than the 3rd and 4th)

Now, since you were (in a way) trying to get the topic back on topic, I'm not going to regard your post as "disruptive meta-discussion", but anything subsequent to it that is "disruptive meta-discussion" will be treated as such by the moderating team. So, for the last time...